Optofluidics is a rapidly growing field that deals with the interplay of optics and fluids, typically liquids, at the microscale. Currently, the major research trends include optical devices defined by fluids, optical particle manipulation in liquids, and optical particle detection and analysis, especially in biology and biomedicine.
It has been pointed out that one of the main advantages of an optofluidic approach is the possibility to vertically combine layers with different functionalities in a single device. Proof-of-principle demonstrations include fluidically tunable waveguide transmission [1] and combination of electrical and fluidic layers [2].